The struggle, which was carried on not so much on the floor of the synod as behind the members' backs in the intrigues of courts, was decided by a compromise to the effect that both dogma and reform should be taken up simultaneously.
But all enactments dealing with ecclesiastical irregularities were to bear the proviso "under reservation of the papal authority." [Sidenote: Dogmatic decrees] The dogmatic decrees at Trent were almost wholly oriented by the polemic against Protestantism.

{392} Practically nothing was defined save what had already been taken up in the Augsburg Confession or in the writings of Calvin, of Zwingli and of the Anabaptists.

Inevitably, a spirit so purely defensive could not be animated by a primarily philosophical interest.

The guiding star was not a system but a policy, and this policy was nothing more nor less than that of re-establishing tradition.

The practice of the church was the standard applied; many an unhistorical assertion was made to justify it and many a practice of comparatively recent growth was sanctioned by the postulate that "it had descended from apostolic use." "By show of antiquity they introduce novelty," was Bacon's correct judgment.
[Sidenote: Bible and tradition] Quite naturally the first of the important dogmatic decrees was on the basis of authority.